Tendera

Tendera is a 17th-century house located in St. Anthony-in-Meneage. It features rubble and cob walls, which are painted and partly rendered at the front and rear, while some of the rear and right-hand walls remain unpainted stone rubble of very small size and cob up to the first floor. The house has wheat reed thatched roofs with eyebrows over the front windows and brick chimneys at the gable ends. It has a T-shaped plan, which may have always been T-shaped, consisting of a larger room or originally two rooms on the left, a hall/kitchen on the right, and a service wing at right angles to the rear middle. The through passage is blocked at the rear, right of the angle with the wing, suggesting that the house may have originally been L-shaped, with the left-hand room possibly widened to the left in the 18th century, or there may have been an unheated central room. The staircase and some beams date from the 18th century, indicating some remodelling during that time. The integral service wing makes the idea of a three-room plan with the hall in the middle unlikely. The house is two storeys tall with a slightly irregular three-window east front. The first-floor windows are grouped closer together, with two ground floor windows to the left of the doorway and one to the right. There is a six-panel door with a slate roofed gable porch. The windows, which are small pane hornless sashes with marginal panes, are likely from the early 19th century and contemporary with the door. The interior has changed little since the 19th century, featuring a large hearth in the right-hand room with a straight chamfered and stopped oak lintel, a beam with similar detailing in the left-hand room, and an oak roof structure with chamfered trusses and collars (with joints not visible). The staircase, which is a dog-leg closed string design from around the mid-18th century, has column turned balusters leading to the upper flight and landing, along with moulded beams that are probably also from the 18th century. This building is a well-preserved example of 17th-century architecture with an unusual plan.